Looking At One Another
by hadaka
Summary: Sena didn't quite know what a relationship should look like from the inside, but he thought he was beginning to. Drabblefic, maybe.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer:** Not mine.

**Warning:** This is **yaoi**.

**Summary:** Sena wasn't sure what a love letter should look like.

* * *

Sena wasn't certain how the letter thing started.

They weren't really letters. More like notes, on torn pieces of paper and folded squares. One was even on a small sheet of origami paper, which got him a crooked smile.

Little things. _Want to eat lunch together?_ _Do you want to go out for ramen today? Are you busy?_ Later he became bolder, like _Do you want to come over?_ or _I want to see the new movie!_ Sena kept it simple, because it was hard to write so neatly all the time, and because he wasn't sure how to write a _real_ letter. What would he talk about? What was there that Sena didn't already tell him in person that could go on a sheet of paper?

The first time he wrote _Do you want to stay over again?_, Sena felt his face flush and wondered what made a love letter.

He tried adding _I miss you._

No reaction, except a dark, flashing glance that Sena couldn't interpret. At least he hadn't been laughed at.

And he did come over, that night. Though he didn't say anything about it.

The next time, Sena wrote _I wish I were with you instead of in class._

Nothing to that—except, again, that look, as they passed each other in the hallway, Kurita-san and Monta being too loud for anything more.

Was he embarrassed?

_Sena_ was embarrassed. Wasn't it a really girly thing to do, to write notes to your—your something. They hadn't talked about it, and Sena wondered if it was time for that discussion. Then he wondered if that kind of thing was all right to bring up in a note.

He tried writing _What are we doing?_, and then tore it up as being too needy.

Sena had probably embarrassed him. What guy liked getting love notes from another guy? And if someone had happened to see it, either the note or Sena slipping it into his hand, his bag, his desk—ah. Sena had been stupid.

He tore up the note he'd begun writing, _I want to see you._

That night, Sena couldn't meet his eye during practice and then went straight home with Monta instead of waiting. His phone rang once, but he didn't pick it up. It didn't ring again.

It wasn't as if Sena was _upset_. He was just—bothered. Apprehensive. He felt slightly as if he'd done something wrong, only he didn't know what—or how to fix it. Just a vague, restless feeling that he couldn't put out of his mind, a question he couldn't answer. _What am I doing? What are we doing?_

No practice the next morning. Sena went to class early instead of going to the clubhouse to drink a Pocari Sweat with—people. He hadn't slept well, and was feeling tired and achy.

When he looked in his desk, he found three folded pieces of paper. Just that. He glanced around, alarmed, but there were only a few people in the classroom and no one was watching.

Feeling light-headed, Sena opened them.

_Gen is thinking about you._

_Gen thinks about you all the time._

_Gen thinks you should just be his boyfriend and not date anyone else._

Sena bit his lip. A pressure he hadn't known was there was easing in his chest, and his eyes felt hot.

What manly handwriting.

He folded a small square of green origami paper.

_Sena feels kind of dumb._


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer:** Not mine.

**Warning:** This is **yaoi**.

**Summary:** There were certain things Sena didn't think a boy could do with a boy.

* * *

Girls liked to hold hands.

Sena could see it everywhere. Girls, holding hands with boys. Their boyfriends, probably. Sometimes girls held hands with each other, but that was mostly in elementary and middle school. Usually, it was a guy and a girl.

He didn't want to be _creepy_, or anything, but Sena couldn't help watching. How easily it was done—sometimes the girl would just walk up and take the boy's hand, like it was nothing. A few boys went red and tripped all over themselves, most just kept walking like this happened every day. Maybe it did.

Other girls went and walked by the boy's side, waiting for _him_ to make a move. Whether he did or not depended, it seemed to Sena, on how confident the boy was, and on how long they'd been dating. Some boys did it nonchalantly, as if they were used to it. Others made a huge production out of just holding their open palms out, looking the other way and talking fast and making a big show out of how _It's you who wants to hold hands, not me._

Occasionally, there were those boys who just didn't like to hold hands. These wouldn't even give the girl a chance to try, would shove their hands in their pants or coats and keep moving. These were mostly the tough-looking ones, the guys who looked like they might spend their weekends picking fights with the Ha Ha Brothers in _pachinko_ parlors. They glared at the girl like they were embarrassed by her outstretched hand.

And then, every now and then, there was that guy—the one who offered a hand first. Who smiled at the girl, a warm, affectionate smile that was almost like a physical touch. Who took the girl's hand and held it close and pulled her near, as if his hand felt empty without hers in it.

_I wish,_ thought Sena.

Since Sena had been young, people had been telling him he looked like a girl. That he sounded like a girl. That he should have been a girl. Sena had always wondered—_Should I have?_ Except he didn't _feel_ like a girl—he liked being a boy. He was a boy and he couldn't imagine it being different. He'd never stood there thinking to himself, _If only I'd been a girl._

Until.

_If I'd been a girl,_ thought Sena, watching the girls hold out their hands, the girls reaching out, the girls and their boyfriends. _If..._

It was a strange feeling. He'd never actually wished he were someone else before, not even when the bullying was at its worst.

Gen, decided Sena, probably didn't like holding hands anyway.

He was too mature for something like that.

So Sena didn't bring it up. Not at practice, not in class. Not during lunch, when Gen asked him why he was so down. (He looked down?) Sena shook his head, smiling, and said, "Nothing, nothing."

But he couldn't help watching. Girls holding hands. Girls going home with their boyfriends, side by side, joined hands between them.

It distracted him. At afternoon practice, he got shot at so many times for not paying attention that the side of his leg was bruised.

_If only,_ Sena'd been thinking.

After showering and dressing again, Sena left the clubhouse to find Gen waiting for him again. He did that more and more often, especially on days when Monta didn't go home with Sena.

"Ready?" asked Gen.

Sena felt guilty. He knew Gen went to work after practice, that he still helped out at his father's company as much as he could while not practicing or in class. Now he was taking time out of his schedule to walk Sena home, and he did it two or three times a week.

"Yeah," murmured Sena.

Walking with Gen was relaxing. Sena liked these days of the week the best, when he got to walk home with the evening breeze in his hair and Gen's tall form next to him. He wondered if girls got to feel like this too, all breathless inside and airy on the out, walking next to the boys they liked. So what if girls got to hold their boyfriends' hands and he didn't get to hold his boyfriend's? What a small, petty thing. Gen was making such an effort to be with him, and it was enough just being there, on the same street, walking together.

Really.

"Sena," said Gen. "What's wrong?"

Sena—couldn't quite smile.

"Um, Gen," tried Sena, "I...I was thinking...I know you're really busy and everything, so. I mean. You don't have to walk me home. It takes so much time—and you live in the opposite direction. I think, I was thinking, we could just spend time together on the weekends, and we see each other at practice, too, so...um..."

Gen stopped walking. Sena got a head a few steps before he realized Gen had stopped and then Sena slowed, not exactly wanting to look back and see what sort of look was on Gen's face. He felt a little ashamed of himself, because that had come out _awful_, all wrong, so ungrateful, like he'd been blowing off Gen's time and attention—

Something snagged his hand and almost pulled him off his feet.

His legs began moving on their own. Sena was walking before he realized—

Gen had taken his hand.

In a _grip_. Not painful, not yet, but—_insistent_. Hard.

And Gen was walking. He was walking down the street, and he was pulling Sena behind him by the hand.

The back of Gen's head looked very stern.

_He's holding my hand,_ Sena thought, even as he hurried to keep from being dragged off his feet.

"I...Gen..."

"Sena," said Gen, very severely. He didn't look back. "I don't walk you home because I think you can't go by yourself."

Sena's throat closed up. Tears came to his eyes. Maybe he really _was_ a girl.

Gen was holding his hand.

Sena dashed forward, until he was next to Gen. Then he turned his hand in Gen's (it took some work) and gave Gen's fingers a little pressure.

Gen slowed. He glanced down at Sena, walking next to him, and something about the way the corner of his mouth turned suggested a smile.

They were holding hands. In public.

A block away from Sena's house, yeah. Still.

Neither let go.


End file.
